


fixed on your hand of gold

by honeyno



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Friends With Benefits, Hand Jobs, Internationaux de France, M/M, Otabek keeps winning stuff, Post-Canon, Tattooed Otabek, and also has a lot of secrets, banquets are lit, everyone's of legal drinking age in France, lowkey pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 09:16:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18091601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyno/pseuds/honeyno
Summary: “You’ve tried?”“You haven’t?”Something in Yuri stings in a way that takes him back to when Viktor and Katsuki would look at him as if he were a child with no idea how the real world works, clueless, a damn genius on the ice and completely helpless anywhere else. It feels like ages since the last time he’d felt like that, like he had to prove his worth and experience and knowledge to anyone. He sucks in a breath and rests his side against the parapet so he can stare at Otabek as he insists,“I’ve done a lot of stuff. Just not that.”(or: yuri's been purposefully clueless for way too long, otabek has a lot of secrets, and they've never really talked about it)





	fixed on your hand of gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MechaPotya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MechaPotya/gifts).



> happy birthday to my virtual pairs partner, legend, icon and star @MechaPotya 
> 
> title is from hozier's _would that i_

Yuri is sixteen when he learns not to look. He’s in Bratislava, of all places, and sharing a locker room with a bunch of seniors, all older, for this random challenger cup he had no interest in until Yakov insisted it’d be a good event to test run his programs at the start of the season, before anything more important happens.

So Yuri’s in Slovakia and about to win a deeply insignificant gold when he gets distracted by fucking Christophe Giacometti, of all people, though it’s really not Yuri’s fault that Chris seems to find it acceptable to stand at his designated locker in just a pair of skating socks and a flesh-colored jockstrap. Chris’s torso and head are hidden behind the locker door, and Yuri stares at the rest of him that isn’t because he’s only human, and he’s still staring when the door swings closed and when Chris asks, not quite sharp but audibly peeved,

“Can I _help_ you?”

Yuri would never admit to the embarrassment that blooms in his chest and he hopes to God his hair’s just long enough to cover the way the tips of his ears burn red as he shakes his head and assures him that no, he was just thinking about something, sorry, before putting all of his attention towards lacing up his boots and avoiding eye contact.

After that, Yuri learns to keep to himself in locker rooms, back home in Moscow but especially when he’s away on competition with people he doesn’t really know and can’t really trust. The reputation it gets him — he’s aloof, he’s straight up bitchy, he’s so hyper focused he can’t bother to say hello — is a small price to pay for his privacy.

Now, it’s not that Yuri cares what anyone thinks of him. This isn’t, as Mila had once suggested before Yuri threw a hard skate guard at her, a matter of some internalized, deep seated issue he has with his sexuality or anything of that sort. It’s just that Yuri, unlike Katsuki and Viktor and everyone else who can’t seem to keep their personal lives private, doesn’t need the world to know who or what he’s interested in.

So he remembers Bratislava, and learns to keep his eyes to himself, and gets dubbed as cold and withdrawn and intimidating for the next three years.  


The banquet at Internationaux de France is nothing to write home about. The seating is assigned, rising seniors are entirely too excited to get to the table Yuri is sharing with Mila, Phichit and a scattering of Europeans he barely knows, and the DJ has decided that mixing in samples of competition music would be fun, even though it means someone tenses up in purely Pavlovian anxiety every couple of minutes whenever the song changes.

The food is alright, and there’s a silver medal in a case in Yuri’s room, so he can only complain so much while Mila stacks a variety of finger foods in his plate as an incentive to both get him to eat dinner, and force him to stay. Phichit has been gone from the table for a few minutes, and when he returns, he’s got Otabek in tow, technically, even though he looks like he might have checked out mentally about half an hour ago.

He’s forgone the vague _semi-formal_ dress code entirely, unless, Yuri guesses, he somehow counts the shiny black bomber jacket he’s wearing as a blazer which would be both absolutely outrageous and kind of charming. His eyes light up a little when Yuri catches his gaze to nod hello, and he grins as Phichit announces,

“We’re moving.”

“Oh? Where are we going?” Mila asks, even though she’s literally already reaching to pick up her phone from the table and go.

“Bar,” Phichit shrugs. “We took a nice walk to confirm none of the coaches are still there, and they’re not, so we’re going.”  
  
Mila nods and turns to Yuri, shooting him an expectant look. Suddenly, all Yuri wants is to sit here, listen to the DJ’s sad attempts at dubstep remixing Carmen, and finish the array of miniature sandwiches on his plate, and he’s not sure exactly where the source of that anxiety is except he feels dragged down into his chair, heavy in the way that usually only happens before the takeoff for a jump that he knows he will not land.

“I don’t really wanna go,” Yuri says, only to Mila, switching to low, rushed Russian. “I— you can go without me. I’ll join later maybe. Still having dinner.”

“Are you okay?” Mila matches his tone, and goes as far as to rest a worried hand at his wrist, and for some insane reason it makes Yuri feel worse. “We don’t have to stay long, just come have a drink, how about that?”

Yuri’s drawing in a breath to try and improvise some sort of excuse when Otabek cuts in, matching their Russian,

“Come on, first round’s on me, I owe you that.”

“You _won,_ you don’t owe me shit,” Yuri argues, and he tries to get some bite into it, truly he does, except the corners of Otabek’s eyes twitch a little like he’s about to smile and Yuri’s tone fades into an almost teasing lilt despite himself.

“Guys. Seriously,” Phichit cuts in, sharp and in English, with his arms spread to his sides as if to say _really?!_ “Are we drinking or not?”

“Shit, sorry, sorry,” Mila laughs, and then turns to give Yuri a questioning look.

Yuri sighs. Otabek’s eyes are still on him, expectant, too, and he knows he’d come off as a sore loser if he were to decline. So he sighs and stands up, and leads the way out of the hotel restaurant and to the bar without saying a word.

One drink turns to a few drinks because Mila and Otabek insist on celebrating, and Phichit insists on hanging out because the way the rest of the season is laid out makes it unclear when the next time they’ll all be in the same dimly lit hotel bar would be, and Yuri—

Yuri has nothing to insist on but the bar’s vodka selection is decent, and Otabek keeps directing all of his jokes at him, inexplicably, so eventually he resigns himself to seeing the night through and abandons his original plan to escape as soon as enough time has passed for it to be socially acceptable.

They toast to Otabek and Mila’s gold, to Yuri’s silver, to France and its people, and then Phichit launches into a scarily accurate imitation of the long winded, over-sentimental speeches Viktor delivers any time he’s presented with an opportunity, complete with wonderfully accented “ _spasibo_ ”s and “ _za zdorovye_ ”s that make Yuri snort into his glass as the uneasiness in his gut dissipates until he forgets it was there to begin with.

It’s a little later when Otabek makes an excuse about being too warm and sneaks out through the sliding glass door that leads to the bar’s balcony. Yuri watches him leave, and Mila watches Yuri, and when he turns back to the table she’s giving him a look he can’t begin to decipher.

“I wonder if he’s okay,” she says offhandedly, before preoccupying herself with methodically eating the slice of orange from the rim of her glass.

 

Yuri doesn’t say anything in return when he gets up, and pretends not to sense her gaze still on him as he follows Otabek out onto the balcony. Outside, it’s empty and cool in a late fall kind of way, like if he tried hard enough he’d be able to imagine snow peppering the rooftops and dancing in the faint glow of the streetlights below.

“I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to be a smoker,” Yuri says as he wanders over to join Otabek at the parapet.

“Unhealthy,” Otabek shrugs.

“I mean, yeah, but how cool would you look if you had a cigarette right now?”

Otabek scoffs but then he turns a little to half face Yuri as he brings two fingers to his mouth and mimes taking a drag of an invisible cigarette. He exhales a long breath then, and it’s cold enough for it to be visible and help along his charade, and Yuri chalks up the way he stares at the nonchalant part of his lips to being fascinated with the entire ludicrous performance.

“You come here often?” Otabek asks as he mimes pulling the cigarette away and rests his elbow on the parapet.

“Shut the fuck up,” Yuri says through a laugh. “You looked cool. Imagine how cool it’d be with like— actual smoke and all.”

“Sure,” Otabek concedes. “But I’d rather have full use of my lungs, thanks, and it tastes gross—”

“You’ve tried?”  
  
“You _haven’t?_ ”

Something in Yuri stings in a way that takes him back to when Viktor and Katsuki would look at him as if he were a child with no idea how the real world works, clueless, a damn genius on the ice and completely helpless anywhere else. It feels like ages since the last time he’d felt like that, like he had to prove his worth and experience and knowledge to anyone. He sucks in a breath and rests his side against the parapet so he can stare at Otabek as he insists,

“I’ve done a lot of stuff. Just not that.”

Otabek’s eyebrows move upward, just barely. He shifts to mirror Yuri’s pose and stares him down. Despite the knee-jerk instinct to look away, Yuri looks right back at him, and then blinks, which means all of this must have only taken a second.

This close, and in the dark, it looks like Otabek’s eyes are almost all pupil.

“Yeah?” he asks then, and it comes out in an amused huff of breath. “What _have_ you done?”

Yuri bites the inside of his cheek, hard, and studies him for another moment. Otabek is inches away and the air between them has shifted from their usual friendly back and forth to something Yuri can barely recognize.

He knows how this song and dance goes with anyone else, “ _I could show you, why don’t you follow me and see for yourself_ ”, fabricated but fun and harmless and fleeting, but Otabek? Otabek’s been the one constant in Yuri’s life for years, the receiving end of panicked late night calls and casual texts and way too few fun dinners and good days carved out between work and shared in random cities all over the world.

This is different. Yuri has no idea how this song goes.

“You’ve never seemed interested to find out,” he says finally, somehow, though his mouth has gone dry.

“It’s never seemed like you _wanted_ me to be interested,” Otabek retorts quietly, and Yuri can’t even begin to process that because he’s never stopped to think long enough to put it into words.

Wanting Otabek to notice, to be interested, has always been a distant buzzing at the back of his mind, a given that he never thought he’d have to really deal with or speak into the world. On the parapet, Otabek’s elbow is almost close enough to bump into his and suddenly that tiny space between them seems like the center of the universe, and Yuri feels _volatile._

“Well,” he manages, and then swallows hard to continue.

“Well?”

Yuri breathes, listens for the sharp push of air through his nose just to make sure his lungs are still working, clenches his jaw. It’s what he does in the moment of stillness before his program music starts, usually; the same level of tunnel vision focus, but he can’t remember the last time he felt that out of control or terrified of what’s to follow.

Otabek is watching him, steady and unreadable, and Yuri can’t look away. He swears Otabek moves closer then, just barely, and Yuri’s next exhale is words stumbling over breath,

“I really wanna kiss you right now,”

And then Otabek beats him to it.

He closes in the distance between their bodies and moves the arm that’d been resting on the parapet so he can just barely curl his fingers right above Yuri’s elbow as his other hand finds the curve of Yuri’s jaw, and he’s kissing him, and all Yuri can do is close his eyes, part his lips and permit it.

When the world comes back into focus, Otabek is just far away enough to breathe, and he’s smiling.

“Glad we’re on the same page, then,” he nods, and he sounds — not smug, exactly. Confident, in a way that settles at the pit of Yuri’s stomach like a carelessly discarded match. It flickers for a second, then the flame catches and grows, and it’s a full blown forest fire by the time he finds his language facilities to say,

“Yeah. Yeah, we are— we should go.”

Otabek doesn’t ask stupid questions like _where are we going_ or _should we say goodbye to the others_. He nods and leads the way inside, and weaves through the dim bar like someone who’s used to sneaking out unannounced. Yuri follows. They’re in the elevator and on their way to Yuri’s floor when Otabek speaks again, this time to ask, carefully,

“Are you—”

“Sober? Consenting? Sure?” Yuri lists off, nodding affirmative after each word before leaning in to seal the confirmation with a long, thorough kiss right as the doors slide open on his floor.

They don’t bother with the lights in his room. There’s a nightlight that has been forgotten on in the corner, and it’s just enough to ensure no one trips over Yuri’s skate bag which has been discarded carelessly right by the door. Otabek does kick it as Yuri pushes him into the room, and he shoots Yuri an accusatory look, but Yuri just laughs and grips Otabek’s jacket tighter to both steady him and spin him around at the same time.

He presses Otabek up against the door and Otabek laughs with him this time because for a second, Yuri doesn’t do anything else.

“What?” Otabek asks, sneaking quick, trained fingers under Yuri’s belt to untuck his shirt. His hands are warm and solid against the small of Yuri’s back, and Yuri settles for shaking his head in disbelief as he kisses him again in response.

He pushes his shoulders back and shimmies ridiculously to shrug his own jacket off as Otabek shifts to trail his lips down Yuri’s neck, and Yuri swears quietly into the space between them as Otabek starts working the buttons of his shirt open, from the bottom up.

“You look good tonight,” Otabek says quietly, which he had also said earlier, at the banquet, but it’d seemed like obligatory pleasantries at the time. Now, it makes Yuri’s insides turn. “You clean up well—”

“You always talk this much?” Yuri interrupts, mostly because he’s blushing, and he’d like to save some of his dignity at least another five minutes.

Otabek’s fingers snake up the length of Yuri’s thin black tie, and then hook around the knot.

“Only till it gets fun,” he shrugs, painfully casual as he grips the knot and lets a single knuckle press into the hollow of Yuri’s throat below. It’s a light touch, just a fraction of what it could be, like a promise.

“I’m having a lot of fun _right now,_ ” Yuri gets out and, in one last quest for dignity, adds “—so shut up,” and kisses Otabek again while he still has the upper hand.

Otabek must unbutton his shirt the rest of the way then, in the seconds that follow, because Yuri’s distracted by the heat of Otabek’s mouth on his, and then he’s _cold._ His shoulders are bare, he realizes, right as Otabek chases the shiver that runs down his spine with tentative, searching fingertips.

He’s still wearing the shiny jacket, and a t-shirt underneath, and that’s at least two layers too many. Yuri pulls back, lets him move away from the door.

“Catch _up,_ come on,” he urges as he loosens his tie some more and pulls it over his head. Otabek’s eyes follow it as it hits the floor and Yuri stores every single overwhelming thought that floods his mind for _later, maybe._

Getting Otabek undressed is top priority, and it’s urgent. Yuri watches him take the jacket off, and then he stretches a little as he tugs his shirt off to follow, and it takes all of Yuri’s self control not to drop to his knees at the first sight of the strip of dark hair trailing down below Otabek’s navel.

Instead, he takes an aimless step back towards the bed, just to regain his balance, and he’s grateful he’d managed to remain upright because he gets to admire all of Otabek’s body, the rise of his chest as he catches Yuri staring and takes a breath. There’s a shadow falling from somewhere that creeps down his shoulder, across his collarbone and down his arm and Yuri wants his hands where the shadow is, his lips.

Then Otabek takes a step towards him, and the shadow moves with him.

Yuri blinks, forces his mind into as much clarity as he’s capable of, checks in again: Otabek is just inches away now, and— it’s ink.

It’s _ink,_ Yuri realizes, and there’s a terrifying moment in which he’s absolutely convinced he will pass out.

“ _Otabek,_ ” he whispers, and he holds his breath as he reaches out to trace the intricate pattern with his fingertips. There’s a sun rising from the dip above Otabek’s collarbone and then its rays bleed into ornaments that look familiar but Yuri’s clouded, overwhelmed mind couldn’t possibly place them.

“You didn’t know?” Otabek asks, and he sounds amused, but he’s not laughing. His voice has dropped lower and he’s just _barely_ smirking as he hooks his hands around Yuri’s waist, clasps them right above the curve of his ass.

“How _would I—_ ” Yuri starts, and there’s a split second in which he’s grateful for all of his well-trained avoidance, for always keeping his eyes to himself in changing rooms. He dreads to think what would have happened had he ever caught a glimpse of Otabek _like this_ before competition.

He can barely stand now, on solid ground, in his stupid dress shoes, as it is.

“This one’s kinda new,” Otabek adds, perfectly unaware of how completely struck Yuri is, because that’s probably a reasonable excuse why Yuri wouldn’t know.

“It’s beautiful,” Yuri breathes, and bows his head to press a kiss to the rays of the sun on Otabek’s collarbone. Otabek’s hands are slipping into his hair, pulling it free of the elastic that’d kept his ponytail intact all evening, when the words really register in Yuri’s head.

 _This one,_ which means there’s more, and suddenly, if that were even a possibility, Yuri feels even more desperate to get to study every single inch of Otabek’s body as soon as possible. He groans against Otabek’s skin and reaches between them to work his fly open gracelessly as Otabek maneuvers them closer to the bed.

This time, with Otabek standing right at the foot of the bed, Yuri does sink to his knees as if to follow as he pushes Otabek’s jeans down. He slides his hands down Otabek’s calves, then presses a small kiss to the side of his knee — the right one, the one that’d scared them so much last season, the traitor — working his way up as Otabek draws in an appropriately shaky breath above him.

And then, there it is. There’s a bird — a falcon, Yuri manages to recognize — covering the expanse of Otabek’s right thigh. It’s large and stylized, and its dark wings wrap around the tight muscle underneath as if it’s ready to fly off his skin. One of the wings trails up towards Otabek’s inner thigh, and Yuri wants to kiss every feather.

Otabek’s hands find their way into Yuri’s hair again and he takes it as permission, so he leans in and presses his lips against the ink, licks his way up the wing all hot breath and just enough pressure to get Otabek to curse sharply above him. Yuri nudges his legs farther apart and reaches up to tug at the waistband of Otabek’s briefs. They’re black, and he’s visibly hard underneath and for some insane, borderline sadomasochistic reason, Yuri is compelled to draw this moment out.

He breathes steadily, fractions of an inch away from Otabek’s covered cock, and traces the tender skin right below the waistband with purposeful, maddeningly light fingertips.

“Yura,” Otabek sighs, and okay, Yuri can get used to the way his name sounds all broken and overwhelmed on Otabek’s lips. “Come on now.”

Yuri nods and pushes Otabek’s briefs down his legs, wastes no time gripping his cock as soon as it’s bare in front of him. It’s thick and solid in Yuri’s hand and he gives an experimental stroke which draws another incredible sound out of Otabek as his knees twitch as if about to give in.

“Sit,” Yuri says quietly, resting his free hand on Otabek’s hipbone to guide him down onto the edge of the bed. He only waits until Otabek settles down to stroke down to his base one more time, and then he gets his mouth on him and Otabek must swear above him but Yuri wouldn’t know because whatever he says is in Kazakh.

Yuri closes his eyes and swirls his tongue around the head, licking teasingly as he lets his hand do the rest of the work. Otabek moves a hand to the back of Yuri’s neck and just keeps it there, almost like a question, until Yuri nods a little, approvingly. Then Otabek presses down, and Yuri uses the guiding weight of his palm to sink down, taking more of his length into his mouth.

Otabek whispers his name again as Yuri sets a steady, urgent rhythm, his own breathing ragged as he tests just how much he can take before he chokes. Yuri’s got something to prove — this isn’t his first time in a similar position, and Otabek’s probably not the largest he’s seen, and his own words from the balcony ring in his head, _I’ve done a lot of stuff,_ as he opens his throat and aims to impress.

He takes in Otabek’s cock down the hilt, which punches a sharp sound out of Otabek and Yuri’s suddenly aware of his own hardness, of how close to absolutely unbearable this is. He hums in response, exhales through his nose to remain steady and starts moving again as he moves his free hand to jam the heel of his palm against his dick, just hoping to all things holy that the pressure would be enough to distract him, keep him grounded just a little while longer.

With the next shift of his tongue, Otabek gets out another string of incoherent encouragement, and then sweeps his thumb to brush over the first notch of Yuri’s spine, and it’s so incredibly private that Yuri thinks in a blinding panic that no, that’s gonna do it, he’s about to come untouched in his fancy, stupid suit pants.

He whimpers and pulls back, heaving as he lets his hand take over.

“God, uh, fuck—” Yuri starts, but Otabek interrupts him, stills his hand by placing his own over his wrist.

“Come up here.”

Yuri nods and gets up on unsteady knees, and then lets Otabek assist with his belt and the zipper before kicking the rest of his clothes off as quickly as his shaking hands would allow. Otabek just watches that part, resting back on the mattress propped up one elbow, his other hand wrapped around his erection, unmoving.

Yuri’s barely managed to crawl up his body to straddle him when Otabek shifts and then his hand is around both of their cocks and Yuri sees white. He makes some high, helpless noise and Otabek kisses it off his lips, and Yuri claws at his shoulders until he’s sitting up again, this time with Yuri above him.

Yuri rolls his hips as Otabek tightens his grip and he can’t help thinking about how Otabek would feel inside him, if this were a different night and he’d _known—_

“Next time,” Otabek murmurs, hot breath against Yuri’s ear, as if he’d read his mind.

“Next time?” Yuri echoes, and just the sheer amount of promise in that makes his ears ring but Otabek’s not done.

He slides his free hand down from Yuri’s back to cup his ass and squeezes, pulling him apart just enough that Yuri can imagine in striking detail how it’d feel if Otabek were to work him open and have his way with him right now.

“Next time,” Otabek carries on, and Yuri’s never hear his voice that low, that strained around a need to keep his composure. “You’re gonna know how much I wanna fuck you, and you’ll be ready—”

“Ready, yeah, I’ll be—” Yuri cuts off sharply as Otabek twists his wrist in some new way that gets a loud, shocked moan out of him. “Want that, yeah.”

Otabek hums quietly, and it sounds almost like a question, so Yuri buries his face in the crook between Otabek’s neck and his shoulder and carries on, whispers more stray, incoherent assurance about how much he wants this, wants him, wants _more —_

And then Otabek moves in that unbearably good way again, and Yuri gasps his name in a sharp exhale, like a punch to the gut, and he’s coming into Otabek’s fist, and across Otabek’s chest, and his own.

The static that follows lasts several weightless moments in which Yuri isn’t sure where his own body is, and he’s only vaguely aware that Otabek’s hand is moving again, making him shudder through his aftershocks. When Yuri can think again, just barely, he whispers something that’s almost real words and reaches to cover Otabek’s hand with his own. In return, Otabek sets out to kiss down his neck, leaving at least one mark that Yuri will have to explain over breakfast in his wake.

Yuri scratches his unoccupied hand up Otabek’s back, digs his nails into the base of his skull, and he’s whispering promise and profanity when Otabek thrusts his hips sharply into their fists and comes with a winded groan. Yuri pulls back and forces his eyes open so he can watch the way his face shifts from a deep, overwhelmed frown into something almost serene as he settles down. He’s beautiful, and Yuri tells him as much.

“God,” Otabek breathes as he takes a few more breaths and then loosens his grip, pulls his cum-covered hand away from their shared mess. “Gross.”

“Shhh— I’ll move in a minute,” Yuri assures him, though instead he settles down onto Otabek’s thighs with all of his weight, and laughs.

“Unbearable,” Otabek teases, and Yuri rolls his eyes at him, bows his head to kiss right under Otabek’s ear. From there, he can see the muscled plane of Otabek’s back upside down, and the sharp peak of a mountain right along his spine.

He takes in a soft breath, as if he’d discovered a secret treasure, and reaches his cleaner hand to touch.

“How many?”

“I’m sure you’ll find out,” Otabek shrugs, and there’s a hint of laughter in his voice, and it makes Yuri’s insides twist like the potential of a new challenge.

“Move first, though,” Otabek adds, and taps his hip to make him. Yuri can’t help laughing with him this time, and he cracks up as he groans, _Fi-i-ine,_ and wills his legs to carry him up, off Otabek and towards the en suite.

They clean up next to each other, in relative silence as Yuri studies his reflection in the bathroom mirror and asks Otabek if he’d like to take responsibility for the display or bright marks on his very pale skin in front of his coach and teammates tomorrow.

“I don’t know, would you like to explain this to them?” Otabek quips, twisting around to show Yuri the set of scratched up nail marks along his back. Instead of answering, Yuri leans in and presses his lips to he heart of the mountain, which gets Otabek to soften, and he urges him out of the bathroom and back to bed quietly, smiling into a kiss.

They’re lying side by side on the bare mattress, dirty sheets kicked aside to the floor, when Yuri takes to exploring the rest of Otabek’s body in search of more ink.  
  
“Do you have the Olympic circles anywhere?” he asks, laughing as he makes a show of checking the length of Otabek’s arm — his bicep, and then the forearm, where he only discovers a small, shaky triangle that looks like a stick n poke.

“Not really that kinda person,” Otabek shrugs, rolling over to stretch out on his back. Yuri wants to argue that if anything, an Olympic medalist has every right to be _that kind of person_ but then he gets distracted by a pattern down Otabek’s ribs that he’d missed before. It’s semi-circles and curved lines, like someone started drawing on a piece of paper and tried to make a pattern without ever lifting the pen. There are small Roman numerals enclosed in some of the circles, and Yuri stares, tries to decipher it.

  
“I don’t get this one,” he confesses, placing a single fingertip at the bottom, on the soft flesh under Otabek’s ribs, to trace it.

“You’re looking at it wrong,” Otabek corrects, and takes Yuri’s hand to move it to the other end of the pattern. He holds his hand for a second, guiding it down, and then lets go when it seems that Yuri’s gotten the idea.

Yuri slides his fingertips down, and the lines suddenly make sense: it’s a turn, and and another, direction changes, and then the circle — this one has a _IV_ inside — rounds off into another curve. It’s a skating pattern, Yuri realizes, like the ones you’d get for basic moves in the field, except this one is more complex: here’s the quad, and then a triple right after, and another little _IV_ right at the bottom of the line.

Yuri’s seen Otabek’s Olympic free skate countless times, he’d know that victorious _quad toe-triple toe, transitional moves, quad sal_ anywhere, by the very sound of Otabek’s blades. He’d just never seen it on paper before; on skin.

“This is incredible,” he whispers, pressing a light, irreverent kiss to the middle of the piece, right around the triple toe takeoff.

“Just getting the circles seemed kind of boring,” Otabek explains, shrugging, and all Yuri can do is crawl back up his body and kiss him, hard, the way he probably wanted to when he watched him podium at Pyeongchang, and on the podium earlier today, and tonight, before he couldn’t, until he _could._

“ _You’re_ incredible,” he repeats, and then lets himself be dragged down and lulled to sleep with more hushed, clandestine promises of _next time._

**Author's Note:**

> lads, comments make me happier than anything else. if you've gotten this far, let me know you enjoyed the ride and drop a few words below! xo


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